Sunday nights at the Pegasus always came to an end, and the end was signified every week when Steve the DJ played Summer Nights from Grease. You’ll remember from last time that on this particular Sunday I was now the proud possessor of the keys to Steve’s old Ford Escort – and it was time to take the bugger home. Or at least get it out of the car park.
However you may remember that, this being a Sunday, I was about eight pints to the good by this time and, although this didn’t seem so important at the time, I wasn’t in possession of a valid driving license. Thinking quickly, I grabbed the mic.
“Anybody need a lift home in my new car?”
The premise here was that someone – probably a girl, hopefully a girl – would be sober enough to realise that I wasn’t sober enough to get the blasted thing onto the Queen’s highway and offer to take it, and therefore by extension me, home. There were no takers. And Ted wanted it out of the car park tonight. One by one my associates drifted away, leaving me to stare at my raffled spoils. As Steve climbed into his Jaguar he laughed a hearty “good luck with that” to me and cruised off into the stygian darkness.
I was left standing there with Lee Meakes, erstwhile painter, decorator and fellow fan of heavy metal. Lee was a master of the tradesman’s ‘sharp intake of breath’ when presented with an onerous task that he didn’t fancy undertaking and he offered me one of his finest after I enquired what we were going to do. Hands on hips, he moved around the vehicle, stabbing the tyres with his instep doubtfully.
“We’ll have to drive it back to your Mum’s.”
He was as drunk as I was.
Luckily the year is 1990 and the Thames Valley Police haven’t yet commenced their revenue-rich war on the motorist. Marlow is a sleepy town – so quiet in fact, that at 11 o’clock on a Sunday night you’re more likely to run into a member of the local constabulary in the queue at the Kebab Van than be nicked by one, so we decide to chance it. I tossed Lee the keys and moved to get into the back, where I felt a nice lie down might be in order. Lee starts shaking his head.
“No no no no no. You drive. I’ve had too many.”
“I haven’t got a license.”
“You’ve got a provisional. If we get stopped we’ll say I was teaching you to drive in the dark.”
It’s true. I did have a provisional, still valid from six years previously when I’d had a stab at learning to drive. It goes without saying that I failed my test, the victim of my own over confidence as I blithely entered a busy T-junction on two wheels at twice the recommended speed – I could see no cars were coming so I felt it would save on braking and clutch work – and it was in my pocket. The plan was watertight. I got in and started her up. My car.
Actually it took about five minutes of tubercular coughing and hacking from the engine before she actually fired up, at which point we noted that the nearside light was not working and there were no brake lights. If the petrol gauge was working, we were in trouble. If it wasn’t, I was prepared to gamble on getting us home with a following wind…
Waking up the next day safe in bed, I appeared to have gotten away with it. Then, from the kitchen, an enquiring voice from the mother.
“Whose car is that out the back, Scott?”
What would you have said?
